The Kitchen Shop in Middlesex Township plans anniversary

Now, as the kitchen store and cooking school prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary, cookie-cutter neon lights shine in the windows as a testament to its humble beginnings.

The idea for the kitchen shop came from the Village of Colonial Peddlers, a series of gift shops that once stood along Shady Lane. The space, owned by a friend of Hoffman's, included a card shop, a candle shop and a kitchen shop.

“When the kitchen shop closed, someone asked me if I wanted to open a kitchen shop, and I said, 'Of course, I love cooking,'” she said. “The end of the story.”

Or some may see it as a beginning.

Hoffman opened his kitchen shop in April 1974 in the Colonial Peddlers space on Shady Lane.

“I went to the press and got some printed matter advertising that we were… open for business, and she said, 'So, what's your logo?'” she said. “I said, 'Hmm, logo? I don't know.' So I was on the phone and I looked there[at the cookie cutter hanging on the wall]and I said, 'What about Gingerbread Boy? “said.

After selling kitchen supplies for about two years, Hoffman moved the store to its current location at 101 Shady Lane.

“[My goal] It was about having a retail kitchen shop,” she said. “I never thought about cooking school.”

In the late 1970s, Cuisinart food processors became popular.

“Everyone said, 'Do you know how to use that?'” Hoffman said. “I said, 'No, but I'll look into it.'

She set up a demo kitchen and initially demonstrated how to use a food processor and microwave.

Then people started offering classes to Hoffman, so she attended international professional culinary competitions and learned how to run a cooking school.

The Kitchen Shop Culinary School began in the early 1980s.

When Hoffman started his business, he never imagined he would still be involved decades later.

“I never thought it would be 50 years since we opened,” she says. “It was literally every day. I had so much fun and learned so much, but where did those years go?”

Today, Kitchen Shop sells a wide range of cooking-related equipment, from pots and pans to knives and blenders to baking ingredients and sauces.

Hoffman said recent hot-selling items include cooking utensils, sourdough making tools, woks and round-bottomed woks.

The Kitchen Shop offers about 300 classes a year, with a wide range of choices from ethnic cooking to pasta, grilling, desserts and knife skills.

Traditionally classes include multiple dishes. For example, this year's Cinco de Mayo class includes chili con queso, roasted corn and poblano chowder, Veracruz-style whitefish, Kahlua-marinated grilled flank steak, creamed tomato and corn, sopapilla cheesecake pie, and more.

Classes are taught by in-house instructors and guest chefs from around the world, including cookbook author Diane Phillips and Sarah Moulton, who has worked on Gourmet Magazine, Good Morning America, and the Food Network.

The school also offers field trips to see culinary luminaries such as Julia Child and Martha Stewart.

Some of the Kitchen Shop's most popular classes focus on specific items, such as perogies, macrons and stromboli, according to Hoffman.

Hoffman said his 50 years of running a business has taught him to trust his employees, listen to his customers, follow trends and not be afraid to change or discontinue products that have become obsolete. . Her favorite part of her job is her customers and employees.

“It’s so much fun because we work so hard,” she said. “You have to have fun while you work.”

Hoffman isn't kidding when he says he works hard.

“I work 7 days a week [and] It’s been going on for 50 years,” she said.

Nevertheless, when I ask her if she still loves her job after all these years, her answer is simple. “Yes, I like it.”

The Kitchen Shop will be holding an anniversary celebration on April 27th from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The festival will include gift card drawings, tasting tables, 50th anniversary merchandise and in-store specials, and a chance to meet Phillips, who has been in the business for nearly 30 years.

The event will also include the sale of Hoffman's personal cookbook collection by guest chefs who have taught at the school over the past 50 years. Proceeds will benefit Bosler Memorial Library in Carlisle.

Registration for this gala can be done online and costs $10 per person, which will be refunded towards class purchases on the day of the event.

Mr. Hoffman hopes to keep the business in his family. She credits her love of cooking to her mother, who now works with her son as a business partner.

“He runs a retail store and I run a culinary school, and one day he's going to take over that,” she said.